As mobile devices and apps continue to change the IT landscape, today’s workforce is often working on the go. They’re collaborating across time zones and borders, moving from one project to the next, sometimes without ever sitting at an office desk but possibly at a coffee shop. Remote and hybrid work models are here to stay. Our team has been specializing in solutions making it easier than ever for organizations to deliver consistent, satisfying experiences to end-users on any device, in any location for many years now.

What Are EUC Solutions?

End-user computing solutions empower employees by bringing management, security, virtualization, and authentication tools like desktops, applications, and data together into one cohesive system. They enable you to create an efficient, satisfying, and effective experience for end-users while giving IT departments the level of control they need to ensure mobile deployments deliver value and protect sensitive data. Common VDI and DaaS solutions include:

• Enabling the shift toward a flexible work environment
• Integrating cloud and modernizing data centers
• Protecting data through secure remote access
• Providing fast and smooth app and desktops user experiences
• Saving time and money
• Transitioning to the cloud at your own pace

The Role of DaaS in Workspace Management

Though many people use tablets and smartphones for work, desktop PC sales increased as a “band aid” fix during the pandemic. Computing performance and speed, price, greater memory, and bigger screen size are the big drivers behind employee demand for those reliable workhorses as well as many more security issues. Because workers use multiple devices and more than one operating system, IT departments were challenged to shift end-user computing strategies from device management to workspace management, focusing on users to identify and access their data. Apps and data must be made universal so workers can access the information they need from anywhere on any platform.

Whether you support a small business services firm or a large enterprise, managing desktops, applications, and end-user data can be a challenge. Not only is maintaining the environment increasingly difficult, but it’s often inefficient, expensive, and time-consuming. Wherever they may be working, end-users must be able to access the apps and files needed to get their work done while having a delightful user experience. It’s no surprise enterprises are increasingly turning to solutions like DaaS and VDI for results. These solutions offload much of the deployment, management, and support burden from internal IT teams.

The Difference Between VDI & DaaS

There is not “one size fits all” in desktop virtualization, but solutions like Citrix enable organization to have options. One difference between VDI and DaaS is the way they’re deployed. Virtual desktops are usually deployed from an on-premise data center while DaaS are from an external managed cloud platform.

Other key differences include:

• Control and management – With VDI, the bulk of the burden of managing servers, including daily maintenance, troubleshooting, and security, falls to your in-house IT team. With Citrix cloud-native management solutions you can move some of these functions to the cloud.
• Cost – The upfront costs for servers or data centers to host and support virtual desktops are often significant. A DaaS deployment generally requires a lower upfront investment since the service provider supplies the infrastructure on a Subscription “Pay as Go” basis.
• Flexibility and scalability – Growing organizations need solutions that evolve with them no matter the speed or technology needs. VDI built on proper infrastructure as well as DaaS can provide for both flexibility and scalability for today and in the future.
• Resource access – It’s true: With an on-premise VDI solution, there’s more resource independence but it also means unless you build for proper redundancy that if your data center goes down, all your resources are unusable. DaaS lets you share resources with other organizations, so downtime is limited if your service is disrupted.

Both VDI and DaaS are virtual hosted desktops, but VDI can require a lot more work from your organization. You must manage servers, storage, endpoints, licenses, and more, and ensure each end-user’s unique work habits and requirements are met. Plus, any software issue or hardware failure is the responsibility of your in-house IT team.

DaaS: A Smart Choice for Today’s Digital Workspaces

Though it might not be clear why you’d want DaaS if you already have a successful VDI deployment, there are some possible benefits to using DaaS.

Advantages include:

• Data Center Space – It helps address data center space, IT staff, and budget constraint issues are less in demand and shifts and prepares you for more cloud like solutions.
• Expanding workforce – DaaS may make it possible to address needs your current VDI deployment doesn’t handle quickly. Opening new offices in new territories and even new countries DaaS can help business instantly provision desktops without the time and complexity of using your limited internal resources.
• Mergers and acquisitions – DaaS can possibly accelerate the onboarding of new employees during M&As, enabling them to get immediate access to essential company apps, data, and services if you don’t have immediate expansion capability in VDI solution.
• Temporary workforce – DaaS makes it easy to rapidly scale up or down temporary workers and contractors, perfect for situations like seasonal hiring to where you contain cost in off and down seasons.
• Running a business 24/7 – Nine-to-five is ancient history for many businesses. You may not be staffing for 24/7  DaaS keeps your business always on, providing access to the productivity, collaboration, and communication tools employees need day or night when they work.

If your organization is new to the idea of digital workspaces DaaS may offer substantial benefits to you. For one, rather than deploying and managing the updates for VDI yourself, it is managed in the cloud and contracted with a third-party provider to satisfy your digital workspace needs.

DaaS and VDI can reduce capital costs, accelerate digital workspace delivery to end-users, and DaaS can eliminate the need for as much infrastructure deployment and management. In either case your business is better equipped to meet employee needs, giving them greater flexibility regarding where and how they work.

End-User Computing Knowledge: The Look Ahead

Employee responsibilities are changing at an incredible rate, and the needs of end-users are shifting in unforeseen ways. A computer that adequately meets a user’s needs today could be far less suitable in a month or year. Cloud-based digital workspaces are designed to meet the challenges of modern workers, allowing them to:

• Access applications and data from any location on any device without device limitations
• Avoid many previous disaster consequences like device failure, loss, or theft
• Rest easy knowing that because apps run on reliable virtual hardware, there’s no loss of work or exposure of data
• Shift from desktop to laptop to tablet to phone and still find everything securely right where they left it

There’s no denying todays ever-connected, always available work environment demands a mobile workforce. Businesses must be able to act and react promptly to whatever variables come their way.  By removing the burden of securely managing complex infrastructure through the adoption of End User Computing Solutions your organization can meet its workplace challenges with internal resources and financial means to focused time and money on growing versus running your organizations.